The Descendants Of Somerled: DNA Evidence

The genealogy of the present Clan Chiefs is well known. It is presented in Peerage books such
as the current Burke's [Burke's 2001], and on the
Clan Donald Edinburgh web page.
Sellar [Sellar 2000] discusses the details of the first few generations.
The genealogy of large numbers of lesser lines is copied onto that web site from the
1904 book on the Clan Donald by the Revs. A. and A. MacDonald [MacDonald 1904].
In addition we have received well to fairly well documented lines all the way to Somerled from 7 other
of our participants, one being Allan Douglas MacDonald, Chieftain of Vallay. These are presented in the following
descendant chart. Names of near ancestors of living participants who are not clan Chiefs have
been removed for privacy reasons, but we have them in our records. The three Chiefs
are color coded blue, the two Chieftains, Allan MacDonald of Vallay and David Macdonald of Castle Camus, are coded green.

Recent SNP results from BigY tests have superceded STR profiles for deternining
Clan branches, which are much less reliable. Glenaladale and especially Castle Camus
are the two groups that probably can be distinguished with STR haplotypes. It is hoped that
a SNP panel determining Clan groups will become available by summer 2015.

The key person in our discussion is John, Lord of the Isles, who died in 1386. He is often known as "Good John". He was progenitor of most but not all of those
Somerled descendants we have in our study. An additional "Network" chart showing the relationships for most R1a participants
is available here as a popup. The calculated haplotype of Good John is the same as participant &PGTBN to 37 markers.
We have descendants of three of John's sons. Eleven of these have excellent paper trail pedigrees.
From these men's pedigrees and haplotypes we can measure a mutation
rate of 0.0043±.0009 (one standard deviation) per marker per birth. The value calculated by the Webmaster from
all available data, both academic papers and surname studies, is 0.0031, only slightly more than one standard deviation off
from our Clan Donald value. This is well within the expected range. Two other statistical tests are possible to perform
on our data. One test compares the number of mutations observed for each marker in our study to the
known mutation rates; these should be compatible, and are. The number of mutations in each of our nine
lines is actually expected to be different: it should follow a Poisson distribution, and it does, to a remarkable degree of accuracy.
Similar calculations have been done using the SNPs measured in our BigY tests, and these agree
very well in the ages of the branch points.

All this means that our DNA data is fully compatible with our paper trails. The DNA offers
no reason to suspect that the genealogy is different from the paper trail. It verifies that
all eleven participants are descendants of the person who occupies Good John's position. Good John
is likely the oldest completely DNA confirmed medieval
line in the world.

Our project has several R1a McAlisters, MacAllisters, and
Alexanders. Alexander is considered a variant of MacAlister. For none of these do we have
full paper trails, though the ones with listed lines have family tradition that they
originate from the listed line. The data for these people is shown below.
Only markers for which at least one person has a difference (highlighted in pink) from the "Somerled" haplotype are shown.
The "Other" column shows how many more markers match the Somerled profile exactly.

390

19

391

385|a

389|1

389|2

458

459a

447

449

464b/c

GATAH4

YCAIIB

456

607

570

CDYa

442

438

444

446

452

GATAA10

GATAC4

Other

MacAllister

25

17

10

10

13

30

16

9

23

31

16

11

23

16

18

19

36

13

10

7

McAlister

25

15

11

11

14

31

15

8

23

31

12

15

21

17

16

18

34

12

12

18

McAllister

25

15

11

11

14

31

15

8

23

31

12

21

17

16

18

34

12

11

13

12

31

13

23

26

McAllister

25

15

10

11

13

30

15

8

23

31

12

21

17

16

18

34

12

11

13

12

31

13

23

26

McAlister

25

15

11

11

14

31

7

McAllister

24

15

11

11

14

32

7

McAllister

24

15

11

11

14

31

7

Allison (MacAllister of Loup line)

25

15

11

11

14

31

16

8

23

32

12

12

21

17

16

18

34

12

11

18

Alexander (of Menstrie, from Earl of Stirling or Caledon)

25

15

11

11

14

31

15

8

23

30

15

27

Alexander (of Menstrie, from Earl of Stirling or Caledon)

25

15

11

11

14

31

15

8

23

31

15

27

Alexander

25

15

10

11

14

31

15

8

23

31

12

21

17

16

18

34

11

12

14

13

31

11

23

26

Alexander

25

15

11

11

14

31

15

8

23

31

15

12

21

17

16

18

34

11

12

18

Alexander

25

15

11

11

14

31

15

8

23

31

15

12

21

17

16

18

34

11

12

18

McDougal

25

15

12

11

14

32

15

8

23

31

12

12

21

17

16

18

34

12

11

13

12

18

The same tests described above can be applied to this data. This analysis confirms that the
main R1a Clan Donald line
is indeed the line of Somerled's grandson "Donald the eponymous". The marker DYS458 appears, based
on this limited data, to distinguish MacDonald from MacAllister. One R1a participant from Glencoe (whose line branches off
from a brother of Lord John) also shares 15 at DYS458. We now beleive that we have sufficient data to show that
the ancestral state was 15 at DYS458 and that the actual mutation occured with the birth of Lord John himself, his father, or grandfather.
While this is not absolute proof, we consider it reliable at the 90% or better level. DYS458 is a fairly fast marker, and we
do see what are likely back and parallel mutations. The number we see is quite accurately in accord with the known
mutation rate. The pattern of 11 at
DYS442 and 12 at DYS438 is indicative of the name Alexander, though we
do not know at all if this is a universal diagnostic. BigY results show two other mutations, known as
CLD56 and CLD57, that arose in Lord John himself. These are not SNPs but are rather gigantic (hundreds or
thousands of bases) that occurred in a region containing large numbers of a 125 base pair repeat unit. So far
these have been testable only by BigY but this may change soon.

Proof of the line of Somerled himself is iffier.
The best evidence that he was the paternal grandfather of Donald comes from
the BigY results of the MacEacharn/MacEachron lines. These people have oral
tradition of being descendants of Somerled near anceators, and interestingly
these tales agree with the DNA results in their order of branching off.
We now have obtained BigY results from an R1a person born with the surname McDougal. This person, shown
above, matches the McAlister pattern rather than that of Lord John. This is (tenuous) evidence
that there really are living male line descendants of Dugall, another son of Somerled said
to be progenitor of that name.
But absolute DNA proof of the line through Somerled to Donald still remains just beyond reach.